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My boyfriend had an awful, stressful day today and I figured I would make him up something real quick to surprise him with and hopefully cheer him up a bit. We spent quite a chunk of time looking at crochet books before at the bookstore and he found a pattern for a cute little turtle and asked me if I would make him it. I told him I could make up one for him from my own pattern, so I figured I would do that today for his cheer-up surprise! On to pictures! (clickable thumbnails)

As you can see, Sam doesn't quite stand so much as he leans using his shell as a sort of kickstand, but it's all good! I whipped him up in a couple of hours so he's small and simple, but oh so cute (in my opinion at least ).

On my last post on the crochet boards I decided that, since I'm a zoology major, any post I make involving animals will be accompanied with some fun facts about the animal species so...

Did you know??The upper part of a turtle's shell is called the carapace and the bottom part is called the plastron. The scales that make up the part of the turtle shell we can see are called scutes and are made of keratin which is the same protein that forms a variety of structures in animals from mammalian hair to bird feathers and even the rhinoceros's horn! Turtles are the only animal in which the scapula (shoulder blades) are located inside of the ribs. The lungs of turtles are attached to the top of their shell which is why you should never hold a turtle upside down for extended periods of time (as all their other organs will compress their lungs!) Almost all turtles have temperature dependent sex determination (TSD) in which the temperature at which the eggs are incubated at determines the gender of the offspring.

Hopefully everyone enjoys Sam and the fun facts. Questions and comments are more than welcome!